Larry Miller was an integral part of Dean Smith building UNC into a nationally prominent program.

He was a two-time ACC Player of the Year in 1967 and 1968 and two-time All-America in those same seasons. He was one of the keys in the Tar Heels reaching the Final Four in both seasons. In 1968, they made it to the national championship game but lost to UCLA in Los Angeles.

Miller also won the ACC Tournament MVP in 1967 and 1968, was the 1968 ACC Male Athlete of the Year, and his jersey No. 44 is honored in the Smith Center. He has the fifth highest career scoring average at Carolina at 21.8 points per game, owns UNC mark for scoring in double figures in 64 consecutive games, averaged a double-double (20.9 points, 10.3 rebounds) as a sophomore, and is 16th all-time with 834 career rebounds.

He’s the only UNC player to ever win two ACC Player of the Year and two ACC Tournament MVP awards. But he almost didn’t go to Carolina.

Miller was heavily recruited by Duke and wanted to go there, but he also wanted to play for Smith at UNC. Fate, however, led him to Chapel Hill.

“He was the big breakthrough,” Smith said in a 2007 interview with The Stacks Reader. “By the time he was ready to sign, Duke had a class of six committed. And Larry said, ‘Gosh, I won’t get any playing time on the freshman team if I go there.’”

UNC went 54-10 overall and 24-4 in the ACC in Miller’s last two seasons as a Tar Heel. Miller was named to the ACC’s 50 Greatest Players list during the league’s 50-year celebration in 2003.

He was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers but chose to play in the ABA, where he had a seven-year career, and in 1972 set the league’s record with 67 points in a game. He was on the ABA All-Rookie team in 1969. In his ABA career, Miller averaged scoring between 12.2 and 18.4 points per game in three of those seasons. He averaged 13.7 points per game for his ABA career playing for five teams.

Miller was so popular back home in Catasauqua, PA, that a local radio station worked out a deal to air all of UNC’s radio broadcasts.

He hasn’t done many interviews over the years and usually avoids speaking much about himself. Among the many team accomplishments he’s proud of, however, is helping the Tar Heels get to the 1968 national championship game, which they lost to Lew Alcindor and UCLA.

To qualify for the NCAA Tournament at the time, the ACC representative had to win the conference tournament. So, beating Duke in the finals and then reaching the NCAA title game was quite a run that history doesn’t recognize, but Miller does.

“You’ve got to consider the ACC Tournament as a playoff back then,” he said in a 2018 interview with WCHL radio. “So we were probably the last team to win six straight games and not be the national title winner because we lost the seventh game against UCLA.”